


Paperwork

by Quiddity



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Age Difference, Business AU, M/M, UshiShira Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:11:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9590402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: A business au I put together for UshiShira week.Shirabu is Ushijima's personal assistant and basically lives to spoil him. Ushijima appreciates it more than he probably lets on.





	1. Intense Force

This really was a sight to see and, if the look in Tendou’s eye was anything to go by, he thought the same. 

Ushijima sits between them at the head of the table . A thick stack of papers rests under his hands, but his eyes are trained on the two people huddling over each other at the other end of the table. There’s no sounds in the room other than the hushed whispers of the other two and Shirabu occasionally clicking his pen. He tries to keep his expression neutral. 

The two people at the other end of the table are the CEO of another company and his personal assistant, a rather attractive blond woman. The CEO Shirabu has mentally named Stripes for the shirt he wears, covered in thin blue and silver stripes. It looks like it’s made out of a weird brand of silk for the way it shimmers. He knows perfectly well that the nickname is a bit rude. The company he runs is a good size; it didn’t get that successful if the guy had no idea what he was doing. They had to be experienced to some decent degree.

Too bad that Ushijima still totally out paced them. 

At six foot three and nearly as wide as a door frame, Ushijima cut an imposing figure. If that were all he had to him, people might be able to work with that. He wasn’t the only person in the business world who happened to be tall and broad shouldered. But Ushijima was whip smart and intuitive to an almost wicked degree when it came to business. In almost three years of working as his assistant, Shirabu had never seen him come out on the bad side of a deal. 

“Eighteen percent,” Ushijima’s voice echoes richly through the room, cutting off the conversation between Stripes and his assistant. They sit quietly for a few seconds. Ushijima narrows his eyes, a slight furrow in his brow, and it’s enough to make them squirm. Stripes is the first to lose his patience.

“You’ve really got me by the balls here,” Stripes growls. Shirabu looks between Stripes as he sweats and Ushijima, who hardly seems bothered by the other man’s discomfort. Ushijima glances down at the papers in his hand, a contract proposal, and pushes it away slightly. 

“There are two other options,” Ushijima starts evenly. Warmth twists in Shirabu’s belly. He grips his pen tighter and bites the inside of his lip. He can see the hammer and something in him warms to see it fall. “Twenty percent, or Tendou here can show you the way out.” Ushijima says. The even level of his voice and how it pulls such visceral displeasure from Stripes nearly has Shirabu swooning. Stripes glares at the papers in front of Ushijima, at the proposal he’s no doubt spent days perfecting, and lets out a deep, measured breath. He’s at the end of his rope and Shirabu can’t blame him. Ushijima’s been whittling away at his patience for the past couple hours, after all. 

“Eighteen, then,” he sighs. His assistant gives him an almost pitying look. Shirabu crosses his legs under the table and does his best to ignore Tendou’s knowing grin. Ushijima flips through the contract, signing in all the appropriate places. After double checking, he hands it off to Shirabu who stands and takes it to Stripes to do the same. He waits patiently while the rest of the forms are signed, the perfect picture of demure professionalism. At the other end of the table he sees Tendou lean over to whisper something in Ushijima’s ear. When Stripes hands him the packet, he looks like he wants to hit him with it. Shirabu only nods politely as he takes it back.

“I look forward to working with you,” Ushijima hums. They all stand and gather near the door. After handshakes are shared, Tendou winks and offers to show Stripes and his assistant out. Shirabu closes the door and he’s left alone with Ushijima. 

“Tendou told me you were about to start drooling,” Ushijima says. Shirabu hums, drops the contract on the table and pushes it out of the way before he sits on the edge of the table.

It took almost a year of dating before Ushijima started to pick up on the little hints Shirabu would leave him. He gets it now and steps close enough that he’s between Shirabu’s knees. Thick fingers brush through the soft hair at the nape of Shirabu’s neck and the blond tips his head back into it. 

“What’s that about? I wasn’t doing anything,” Ushijima says. He rubs lightly and Shirabu hooks his fingers through one of Ushijima’s belt loops and tugs him a bit closer, the fabric of their slacks hissing together. 

“You were really pissing that guy off,” Shirabu says softly. He slides his free hand up Ushijima’s thigh, cups him through his pants. He’s half hard, but still easily filling Shirabu’s palm. Ushijima’s eyes turn a few shades darker when he curls his fingers lightly around the bulge. “Like it was nothing. You looked really good.” 

Ushijima’s cock gives the slightest twitch in Shirabu’s fingers. Shirabu can see him mulling it over, golden eyes dark, his jaw working. He leans in, fingers gripping a handful of the blond’s hair and holding him still as he slides his tongue over Shirabu’s lips. Shirabu sighs happily and parts them for him. He drags his palm up the length but Ushijima stands up and backs out of his grip. He clearly doesn’t want to; Shirabu can see him trying not to start panting. 

“Tonight,” Ushijima says, his voice thick. He swallows, then runs his fingers through his hair. “I need you to make an appointment with a notary for tomorrow morning. I don’t want him backing out of that,” he add, motioning to the contract. Another deep breath and Shirabu notes, with a bit of disappointment, that he’s not even showing through his slacks. 

“Yes sir.”


	2. Promises

He finds it in his inbox almost first thing in the morning. He leaves it sitting there, checks all his other emails, goes through his entire morning routine before he even considers looking at it. He briefs Ushijima on his schedule, sorts out all the paperwork he’ll need, gives him his coffee and a chocolate donut he’d nicked from Semi in the break room. 

He finally checks it around mid-morning when he has nothing else to do. The email comes from Stripes, or perhaps his assistant. The title line reads like a skeevy spam email. 

**We want you!**

Okay. Definitely from Stripes himself. No woman in her right mind would write this. 

Shirabu has to read it three or four times to really get the meaning. The introduction is gushing, something about how impressed he was after meeting him last week. The body lists off a job description and benefits.They’re nice, but nothing impressive. Comparative but slightly different. Not anything he’s gonna hurry and pack his things for. The conclusion is filled with forms of contact in a number that frankly, Shirabu finds excessive. The guy is coming on strong. 

Kawanishi, as if sensing drama from halfway across the room, appears over the edge of his cubicle. A tow headed disturbance in the small maze of squares Shirabu overlooks from his place just outside Ushijima’s office. He looks tired and, well, it is only ten, the guy is probably only just now becoming lucid. They stare at each other and Kawanishi does that stupid head tilt he sees most often in college age frat boys, then disappears back into his cubicle. Shirabu’s instant messenger pings a few seconds later. 

**Kawanishi_T: You look like someone sent you a really awful joke** **  
****Yamagata beat me again?**

Shirabu rolls his eyes. It was Reon who beat him today with one of his terrible dad jokes, but he wasn’t going to tell him that. Before he answers he forwards the email to Ushijima. He very much doubts he’s been made privy to this offer and he wonders how he’ll react. 

**Shirabu_K: Pretty much** **  
****Better dental, but the lack of vacation days is a real dealbreaker**

Before Kawanishi can answer Shirabu hears Tendou’s cackling. He sees a flash of red hair. At some point in the last couple of minutes he must have gotten bored and snuck into Kawanishi’s cubicle. 

**Kawanishi_T: Youll never take it** **  
****They’ll have to pry you out of Ushijimas cold dead hands first** **  
****Tendou wants to know who its from**

Another flash and Tendou peeks at him from over the cubicle wall. He waggles his eyebrows. Too bad Shirabu’s already forwarded the email to Ushijima. He’s just stolen a valuable piece of gossip from the redhead. Shirabu pretends to ignore him and writes his reply instead.

**Shirabu_K: 18%**

The response is instant. If Tendou’s wheezing is anything to go by, he gets the reference. An alert pops and Shirabu sees he’s gotten an email. Ah, Ushijima’s gotten around to looking at that email faster than Shirabu had expected. He opens it and there’s only one line in response. 

**Come see me.**

Shirabu has a strange flash of anxiety from his days as a teenager, when his parents would say something similar when he’d found a way to disappoint them. He squashes it back and tells Kawanishi and Tendou to keep their mouths shut before he puts his monitor to sleep and pushes back from his desk. He knows Ushijima better than that. The command is nothing more than a very straightforward and condensed version of whatever’s going on in Ushijima’s head. 

Shirabu knocks before he opens the door to Ushijima’s office. He waves him in with a soft hum and Shirabu shuts the door behind him before he steps in to linger beside his desk. Ushijima doesn’t look at him at first. Shirabu is close enough to discretely lean forward enough to look at his monitor. He’s squinting hard at the email Shirabu just forwarded to him, his eyes sharp as they crawl over the text. When he reaches the end (Shirabu wonders, briefly, how many times he’s read it already) he sits back in his chair and lets his hands fall in his lap. 

“Do you remember our promise?” he asks. His voice is low, but no less forceful than if he’d growled at Shirabu. The blond straightens up and he fights for a second to school his expression into something calm. He didn’t think he would have irritated Ushijima with this. He clears his throat.

“Of course I do.” 

How could he not?

_ Two years ago, he’d gone to Ushijima’s loft for the first time. Overtime, dinner, Shirabu kissing him on a whim. Ushijima taking that and running with it. Shirabu hardly remembers all of it; just that he’d found himself sore and tangled up in dark sheets. He remembers stretching out in Ushijima’s bed while he stroked his hair, dozing while Ushijima traced down the length of his spine.  _

_ “Promise me something,” Ushijima said. His voice buzzed so deeply in Shirabu’s head. He hummed softly and when he stretched he ached up to the small of his back. Ushijima nuzzled closer, nipping the shell of his ear. “Shirabu.”  _

_ “What is it?” Shirabu asked. He turns his head and looks at Ushijima over his shoulder.  _

_ “I don’t want you to work for anyone else,” Ushijima said. He stretched out at Shirabu’s side, looping his arm around the blond’s waist. “Only for me.”  _

_ If he hadn’t known Ushijima better, he probably would have found that incredibly creepy. What kind of guy demanded his absolute loyalty like this after one bedding? If he hadn’t known Ushijima was painfully oblivious to nuance and subtlety, he would have probably pulled away. If he hadn’t known Ushijima rarely spoke anything besides what was literally on his mind, Shirabu would have laughed in his face. _

_ But he did know all those things, knew that Ushijima was likely nothing more than sincere. What would have probably been sketchy to some looked like a steady job and a steady boyfriend to him.  _

_ “Sure,” Shirabu hums. Ushijima purrs, a soft, happy sound, and starts kissing down the side of his neck. “Why would I want to do anything else?” _

“So what does this mean?” Ushijima asks. Though he sounds completely even, almost irritated, Shirabu thinks he might be hearing an edge of worry in his voice. Ushijima motions to the email. “I would ask if you want me to match this but.. There’s not much there. Am I missing something?” Shirabu sighs and lets some of the tension out of his shoulders. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Shirabu says. He glances at the door then steps around Ushijima’s desk, close enough that he can smooth his hand over the brunet’s shoulder. When he squeezes, he can feel some of the stiffness ease out of him. “I just wanted you to know they had tried to contact me. Behind your back.” 

Ushijima frowns lightly, narrowing his eyes at the email. Shirabu can almost see his mind working it over. He wonders if he’s irritated over this contact. 

“That’s slimy,” Ushijima finally says. He sits up and Shirabu watches him delete the email. “Trying to take my PA out from under me.” Shirabu runs his fingers across Ushijima’s shoulders, and hugs him around the neck. 

“You know they’d have to offer me a lot more than that,” he purrs in Ushijima’s ear, Ushijima turns to him and Shirabu smiles against his lips. “I promised, after all.” 


	3. Clothes

Ushijima has a plain white ironing board that he keeps in the tiny linen closet in the hallway, but even after all this time Shirabu still has to provide his own iron. He tells himself every time he hauls the board out, sets it up behind one of the black leather armchairs in the living room he’s piled with dress shirts, undershirts, slacks and clean sheets, that he needs to just give in and buy Ushijima his own iron. 

But Shirabu has come over almost every single Saturday for almost two years and he’s never once forgotten to toss his iron in his backpack before he leaves home. Sure, it sometimes digs into the small of his back when he’s waiting for the subway, but it’s a weight he’s found some strange kind of domestic bliss in carrying around. His mother had been neurotic about catching up on laundry every weekend, down to the sheets. It was simply a habit he had picked up. 

Ushijima tried to deter him from going through and ironing his laundry. It wasn’t Shirabu’s job. He worked enough during the week. He was perfectly capable of taking his own shirts to the dry cleaners; he made enough money for that. Once, several months into their relationship and several months after Shirabu had thought the matter settled, he had told Shirabu that he really wasn’t his boss on Saturdays. On Saturdays they were a couple. Shirabu pointed out that couples did these kind of things for each other and then Ushijima had to settle for helping him fold the laundry and untangle coat hangers. 

Ushijima hangs up a deep mauve dress shirt, smoothing the fine cotton and laying it across the back of a chair as he buttons it up around the hanger. Shirabu hardly has to look at him to know he’s thinking about something. It’s how he holds his shoulders, just a little stiff, a tiny wrinkle in his brow. 

“Okay, what’s on your mind?” Shirabu asks. He flaps another shirt, brilliant white, and spreads it out on the ironing board. Ushijima answers first with an almost inaudible grunt then, at Shirabu’s flat look, he gives up his thoughts. 

“What do you think about Goshiki?” he asks as he takes up another shirt and hanger. Shirabu stands there for a second, iron in hand, stumped. He tosses the question around in his mind for what reason Ushijima could have for thinking about him. 

“The kid?” Shirabu asks. He thinks of the office’s newest addition, a hyper bowl-cutted kid about three degrees too energetic for his tastes. He’d only been around for a few months, but he trailed after Ushijima like a an over excited puppy. “Well, he’s okay I guess. I’m still trying to figure out what he’s trying to prove.” Ushijima hums to himself and sets the next shirt aside. 

“He’s had some good ideas about how to improve things around the office,” he offers. Shirabu huffs to himself and focuses on his ironing. The bad part of that was that it was true. It wasn’t that Shirabu had any particularly lofty goals in the office; he was simply a personal assistant in the end. He was happy in his supporting role, helping Ushijima’s own goals come to fruition as smoothly as possible. 

But he had to admit that Goshiki had a knack for business that hit just a little too close to Ushijima’s skill set. What irked Shirabu more was that Goshiki was clever about it, and he was starting to pull a surprising number of strings for how straight-forward he seemed on the surface. And all from the low spot on the totem pole. 

“Okay, yes, but what does that have to do with-” Shirabu goes quiet for a couple seconds, finishing up the last sleeve on the shirt he’s ironing. When it’s done he snaps it up and flings it towards Ushijima. It hits him in the shoulder and falls to the armchair. Ushijima doesn’t even flinch. “You’re  _ not  _ thinking about promoting him already, are you?” 

“No, not yet,” Ushijima says. He picks up the shirt Shirabu’s just flung at him and calmly goes about putting it on a hanger. Shirabu doesn’t buy it for a second. At times Ushijima is like trying to read Shakespeare in a stone wall, but it’s painfully obvious when he’s lying. 

“ _ You are _ ,” Shirabu accuses. Ushijima glances up at him and for the barest second Shirabu thinks of a scolded dog, but then it’s gone and the brunet flaps a sheet and starts folding it. 

“Only if he continues doing a good job. Anything I’m thinking about is still far in the future.” Ushijima says it almost as if he’s reassuring him, but Shirabu isn’t entirely willing to buy it. Whatever he’s thinking of, it’s something big. Surely, something that will change the dynamics of his life and perhaps even their relationship. Shirabu isn’t sure if it’s something he wants and the fact that Ushijima isn’t entirely willing to divulge it to him is telling in a way that has him suspicious. He sighs and picks up the last shirt, dark midnight blue. A shirt Shirabu had bought him for his birthday last summer. Change is inevitable. All he can hope for, he thinks, as he turns the iron to a lower setting, lest he damage the fine cotton, is that he can at least keep his quiet Saturday mornings.


	4. Flashback

Six weeks into this job and Shirabu feels like he’s going to die. Not in the ‘I can hardly stand to drag my corpse through the door every morning,’ way, but more in the ‘My boss is the most perfect example of masculine beauty I’ve ever seen,’ kind of way. Tall, broad, serious, sharp eyes and a voice so deep he can almost feel it vibrating in his own chest, his boss hits every single checkpoint on Shirabu’s It List, along with a few points he hadn’t realized were there. 

One of his saving graces was that Shirabu couldn’t see Ushijima directly from his desk without actively looking at him. Which, he was tempted to. A lot. But his desk overlooked much of the rest of the office and, knowing some of his coworkers’ willingness to completely ruin his life over this crush, it was enough to convince Shirabu to keep his eyes to himself.

It was one of the few things that kept him sane, because talking to Ushijima, attending him throughout the day, hell, just having a modicum of his attention, was enough to nearly fry his brain. He tried his best to hide it. He was a professional, after all, and an assistant no less. If he couldn’t keep things straight and tidy then he wasn’t doing his job. But recently, he’s been wondering if Ushijima’s starting to catch onto him

Today, especially, he’s been almost paranoid. Ushijima came into the office some ten minutes after him. He would meet Shirabu at his desk, take a schedule and whatever forms were most pressing, and listen as Shirabu gave him a quick run-down of what needed to be done during the day. Typically he would flip through the papers while Shirabu talked. At first Shirabu had wondered if he were actually listening, but he’d quickly learned that he was merely multitasking. 

This morning though, Ushijima tucked the papers under his arm and looked Shirabu full in the face while he went through his spiel. It was almost enough to have the blond stuttering. Almost. He was a  _ professional  _ and made it through his morning summary without a hitch. In his head though, he was swooning under that sharp gaze. 

The next oddity was during the morning meeting a couple hours later. Shirabu would put together the room a few minutes ahead, making sure everyone had chairs and a copy of goals and outstanding business. Anything to make sure everyone was on the same page, down to seeing that every setting had a pen so anyone could take notes. Once the meeting began he would take a spot at the far end of the table, taking down his own notes on any and everything brought up in the meeting. It was something he would use his free time during the day to write up for the next day’s summary. 

The whole point of it was that he was out of the way. He was simply a listener after all. But this morning, just before the meeting started, Ushijima called him out. Shirabu had stiffened in the doorway, laptop under his arm and nearly withering under the stares of all his coworkers. For the second time that day, he’d had to very quickly smooth out all the wrinkles in his expression and act like he wasn’t inwardly panicking that he’d done something wrong. 

“Sit here,” Ushijima had said. He had pulled up another chair to the table, right next to him just off the the head of the table. “I want to be able to tell you to other things to take down,” he had explained. So Shirabu had had to shuffle his way all the way across the room to his new seat between Ushijima and Tendou. The redhead’s expression had been particularly sly looking, but Shirabu knew better than to give it any kind of attention. He had to focus on noting everything he possibly could. He had to be missing things, why else would Ushijima call him out on it?

Ushijima never asked him to take down anything specific. 

Now here Shirabu stood in the door to Ushijima’s office, squinting at his boss and trying to fathom what he really just said. 

“I think we should go out for lunch,” Ushijima says after a short staring contest. He even nods a little to himself like yes, he’s sure this is what he wants. It’s a good idea. Shirabu merely tips his head and tries to puzzle out just what exactly that means. 

“Like out, out?” Then Shirabu catches himself and straightens up, settling his folders neatly in his arm. “You’re sure you don’t want me to just pick something up like normal?” Ushijima shakes his head a bit. He pushes back from his desk and takes up his jacket from the hanger on the wall behind him. 

“Of course I mean out. I don’t want to eat in the office today,” Ushijima shrugs on the jacket and Shirabu shuffles out of the doorway when he walks past. He stutters, finally sets his things on the desk and follows him to the front door of the office towards the elevator.

“Okay, well, I’ll just leave some things on your desk you can look over later-” Ushijima stops a few steps into the hallways and his expression is...confused. 

“You don’t want to come with me?” he asks. Shirabu can just stand there because his mind has  _ again  _ screeched to a near halt. How can Ushijima say that so easily? Yes, just pack up and go to lunch with his super hot boss. No big deal. It really wasn’t going to give him some kind of heart condition being with Ushijima outside of the office for any length of time. 

“Really? I mean- who else should come?” Shirabu asks. Ushijima sighs and motions back into the office. After a couple seconds Shirabu realizes he’s telling him to get his jacket. 

“Just us. Tendou said I haven’t taken the time to meet you properly. I’m trying to fix it,” Ushijima admits. Shirabu nods stiffly and, sure enough, when he returns to his desk and puts on his jacket, Tendou is grinning at him like a pleased cat from across the room. Shirabu has yet to know if he’ll thank him or beat the snot out of him. 


	5. After Hours

The conference table looks like a war zone, and everyone sitting around it like they’d experienced something awful. Kawanishi’s been asleep, snoring into his notebook, for the past twenty minutes, but no one has had the time to wake him up yet. Yamagata was scribbling, his eyes bloodshot like he’s in the middle of a terrible hangover. Tendou had gone to the restroom, Shirabu glances at the clock as he nudges a cup of coffee into Reon’s hand, almost half an hour ago. Shirabu makes a note to call him. If he’s gone home, Tendou will have to answer the hell Shirabu’s going to give him. 

Ushijima and, Shirabu isn’t sure whether to be surprised or not, Goshiki are still working at almost full speed. Ushijima simply because he’s probably some kind of superhuman being that has to mentally flick a switch in his mind to make himself slow down. Goshiki probably because he can never stand to lose face and be the first to quit. 

“Should I order something to eat while I’m up?” Shirabu asks. He sets more coffee down beside Ushijima and Goshiki. Nobody looks up from their work, so Shirabu spreads his hand between Ushijima’s shoulders. As he rubs, he feels Ushijima’s muscle loosen under his fingers. 

“No, I think we’re almost done here,” Ushijima says. He shuffles some papers together and starts sorting them into a stack of manila folders. Goshiki, seeing Ushijima wrapping things up, gets even more agitated and starts flipping through the stack of work in front of him. Shirabu drops his hand from Ushijima’s back and narrows his eyes at him. 

“Don’t rush through it and do it wrong,” he warns in a low growl. Goshiki balks and slows, though he keeps a close eye on what Ushijima is doing. Shirabu sighs, there’s no stopping that competitiveness. He doesn’t know how Ushijima puts up with it. With that settled, Shirabu goes around taking notes on how everyone else is doing. 

“It seems like most of what’s left is what Tendou had here,” Shirabu says. He settles into the vacated chair, glances at Kawanishi’s sleeping form across from him, and delivers a sharp kick under the table. Kawanishi flinches, the only sign he’s awake a soft hiss he makes into the papers he’s laying on. “And whatever Taichi’s sleeping on,” Shirabu adds. 

“Sorry,” Kawanishi grumbles. He sits up and one cheek is stained pink where he’s been laying on it. Shirabu starts flipping through Tendou’s abandoned work and before long they have bits of it spread around the table. 

“No coffee for you,” Shirabu grumbles. “Let’s finish this last bit and just go home for the whole weekend.” Someone, he isn’t sure who, grumbles that 1AM on Saturday morning was already the weekend.

Finishing up the rest of the work is one thing. Sorting it all out and making it presentable, truly  _ finished _ , is another thing entirely. It’s creeping past three before Goshiki and Reon, the last in the office beside Ushijima and himself, are saying their goodbyes and filing down the hallway toward the elevators. 

Before he heads home, Shirabu decides to spend a few minutes tidying up after they’re gone because at the very least he can make sure the coffee pot is clean before everyone comes in on Monday morning. He finds Ushijima stretched out on one of the couches in the break room. He hardly fits on it, his feet crossed on one of the arms and his head supported by a throw pillow. Shirabu can see his breathing is even, but can tell that he’s not asleep. Ushijima doesn’t fall asleep so fast. 

“Too tired to make it home?” Shirabu asks. He steps into the room and settles on the very edge of the couch by Ushijima’s hip, the only place he has any place at all to sit down. Ushijima doesn’t move, only grunts softly in his chest in response. 

“I’m still awake enough to drive home you know,” Shirabu says. He leans over Ushijima a bit, strokes his hand over his tie and down the center of his chest. He breathes slow and even. He’s starting to doze. Shirabu doesn’t see him so tired very often. It’s endearing. When Ushijima still doesn’t answer Shirabu fills in for him. 

“A catnap then?” Shirabu asks. He looks around the room, then gives in. He leans over Ushijima and rests his head on the older man’s chest. Warmth seeps through the thin, soft cotton of his shirt. A button digs in just under Shirabu’s eye but he doesn’t mind it, he just pets up and down his sides, feeling him breathe under his fingers. 

“Ten minutes,” Ushijima rumbles. His voice is so deep and thick with sleep that Shirabu feels it rumbling through his skin, his cheek and hands. Shirabu pats him affectionately and Ushijima waves one hand around until he can settle it in his hair and sift his fingers through it. 

“Should I call a cab?” Shirabu asks. Ushijima rumbles again, a deeper breath where he hides a yawn. 

“No, I’ll be fine.” 


	6. Absence

Shirabu awoke to nausea crawling up the back of his throat and a chill rocking him down to the bone. He moans and when he turns his head it feels like his skull is about to come apart. 

Okay, so he’s sick. Just thinking about it makes his stomach turn. He shoves his face into the pillow to block out the light coming through the window and feels that it’s soaked with sweat. His head is throbbing, but he’s got to take stock of what he needs to do.

Go to the doctor, first of all. But that’s also just not going to happen. Shirabu isn’t even sure he has the energy to pull the trashcan beside the bed, much less somehow get himself dressed and down to a doctor’s office.

“Office-” Shirabu growls to himself. What time is it? He curls up on his side and paws around for his phone off the nightstand. The light makes his head protest behind his eyes but when he squints at the screen he wants to cry at the time. He’s overslept by more than an hour but, when he unlocks the phone, he only has two texts. One from Ushijima and one from Tendou. 

‘Feel free to stay home today.’ Ushijima’s text sounds callous, sarcastic even, but Shirabu knows that Ushijima is almost wholly incapable of either pettiness or passive aggressiveness. If Ushijima were truly angry with someone, it was generally something that left them with nightmares. Shirabu had only seen it a couple times. 

‘Sick? Ur not answering ur phone and not in the news so ur probably dead at home. Get well soon.’ Tendou probably knew Ushijima would have just sent him the bare minimum and decided to expand on it a little bit on his behalf. At least they figured out what was going on without him calling in. Shirabu dials Ushijima’s cell phone, thinking he should still be going through his morning routine. Ushijima answers after a few rings. 

“Good morning,” Shirabu mutters into the phone. He can hear papers shuffling in the background and distantly, the chatter of the office. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it in today.” Ushijima hums softly through the phone. 

“I know. Are you okay?” he asks. Shirabu huffs. To his surprise, Ushijima gives a quiet chuckle. “You’re sick then?” 

“Yeah. I’m gonna try to make it to a doctor later on but right now…I don’t even know if I can make it out of bed,” Shirabu admits. Nausea is starting to rise in his stomach again and he swallows it back, determined not to be sick with the phone on. 

“I’ll come over soon. I have to sort a few things out, but then I’ll take you to an office.” Shirabu squints at the far wall of his room, trying to puzzle out what Ushijima was saying. 

“What? Why? You don’t have to take off for me,” Shirabu start. Ushijma says something to someone- Goshiki, Shirabu realizes when they speak up. What’s he doing with him?

“They’ll be fine for a day or two without us,” Ushijima says without a hint of doubt. Shirabu sighs tiredly and runs his free hand down his face. He’s sweating, and starting to shiver under the blankets. 

“I’ll be fine without you too, you know,” Shirabu insists. Goshiki is talking more in the background and Ushijima pauses to- Shirabu realizes with mild horror that he’s giving Goshiki instructions. “What’s Goshiki doing?”

“He’s going to keep things organized for the next couple days,” Ushijima says flatly. Tendou is there too. Shirabu can hear his familiar laughter somewhere in the room. 

“Oh my God..” Shirabu really is going to be sick now. The thought of all that work in Goshiki’s hands… “I can’t convince you otherwise?”

“Reon and Tendou are here to help him,” Ushijima says. Yes, of course, that’s perfectly acceptable. Give the kid the reigns as long as someone’s watching him. More shuffling and chatter before Ushijima comes back to the phone. “I’ll be there in an hour or so,” he says, then the call disconnects. Shirabu groans, immediately loses his phone in the mess of tangled blankets, and thinks that all he wants to just sleep for the next week and forget any of this is happening. 

Shirabu is leaning hard on the bathroom counter as he rinses his mouth out when the front door opens, as Ushijima promised, little more than an hour later. He hears familiar heavy footsteps moving around in the living room, the plastic rustling of bags as he moves into the kitchen. Shirabu spits into the sink, his hands shaking, when Ushijima rounds into the doorway. 

“You should lay down,” he says. Shirabu glances up and offers him a weak smile. Ushijima has changed at some point from his suit to a pair of jeans in a thick sweater. If his muscles weren’t fighting just to keep him standing, he probably would have appreciated it more. 

“Yeah, I really want to, believe me,” he pants. “I’ve been sweating so I want to lay on the couch.” Shirabu reaches out and Ushijima moves to help him, steadying him under the arm and leading him out into the hall.

“I had to go shopping before I came over here,” Ushijima says as he helps Shirabu stretch out on the couch. He pulls the thin quilt off the back of the couch and spreads it over Shirabu, taking the time to meticulously ensure that it’s tucked around him. “I got some soup and cold medicine, but I’m not sure how well it will work.” Shirabu gathers the blanket around his neck and after a short pause Ushijima thinks to bring a trashcan close to his head. Just seeing it makes Shirabu’s stomach turn. 

“I have some ibuprofen in the cabinet by the sink. Can I have some of that?” Shirabu asks. Ushijima wanders off and a couple minutes comes back with a handful of pills and a bottle of water. Shirabu takes the bottle and looks at the outstretched hand. 

“What’s the rest of this?” he asks. He starts taking them regardless, but it takes him three swallows to get them all down. 

“Vitamins,” Ushijima says simply. He sets his hands on Shirabu’s hip and shoulder, gently pushing him further back into the couch so he has enough room to sit next to him. “I thought they would help you.” Shirabu chuckles and struggles to take another sip of water. 

“You shouldn’t hang out here too much. If you get sick, that means I’ll have to babysit Goshiki when I go back, and I don’t think I’d be able to handle that,” he says. Ushijima grunts softly and starts rubbing soothing circles on Shirabu’s hip. Much more of that and Shirabu is sure he’ll fall asleep at any minute. 


	7. Future

They’ve been dating for two years, but Ushijima has probably aged by five in the same time period. Shirabu thinks this while he’s curled up in one of the nice leather armchairs in Ushijima’s loft, just out of reach of the bright hot square of summer sunlight creeping across the floor in front of him. He’s supposed to be reading. It’s not even something for work for once, but he can’t focus. 

Ushijima is only in his mid forties, but when the sunlight catches his hair just so, Shirabu can see the silver strands mixed in with the deep brown of his natural color. Not like it’s anything Shirabu minds; he’s always been into older men and, compared to many of his peers, Shirabu knows he’s hit it out of the park with Ushijima. His personality be damned.

He didn’t mind the gray in a way that he wasn’t attracted to it, but rather he was starting to get worried about his health. Ushijima was in the office sixty hours a week more often than not, and often he took his work home with him. Shirabu, workaholic that he was had had to take the work physically out of his hands so many times he’s lost count. 

Shirabu sees the moment Ushijima notices him staring. His eyes flick over and meet his, bright gold in the sunlight, and his eyebrows raise the slightest bit. A tiny, tiny show of curiosity. Shirabu gives up on getting any of his reading done and sets his bookmark between the pages before he sets it aside on an end table. 

“What are you thinking?” Ushijima asks. Shirabu rolls out of the chair and pads over to where Ushijima sits in the other. He helps himself to the older man’s lap, pushing the newspaper he’s reading to the side. 

“That you need a vacation,” Shirabu says. He reaches up and pushes his fingers through Ushijima’s hair. When he pushes it back there’s a nice streak of gray at his temple. He sees Ushijima consider that, then he presses into Shirabu’s hand. 

“Why do you think that?” he asks.

“Because you also need to dye your hair soon, or people will start calling you old,” Shirabu says. He taps his fingers over the gray spot and Ushijima rumbles softly against his shoulder. “Tendou certainly will.”

“Tendou already does,” Ushijima says. He finally gives up the paper and sets it aside in favor of setting his hands on Shirabu’s waist. “And I’m not dying my hair.”

“I could do it for you,” Shirabu offers. Ushijima squeezes him with big, strong hands and a twinge of warmth flares in his blood. “Don’t get me wrong. I like it, but you know how people are.” 

“If you like it, then I’m not going to dye my hair,” Ushijima presses. His hands smooth down to Shirabu’s hips. Shirabu sits up and their eyes meet. He sees Ushijima is starting to get some wrinkles under his eyes and in his brow. He smooths one out and Ushijima grunts softly, but Shirabu can’t tell if it’s irritation or something like curiosity or surprise. “Where should we go?”

“Who says I’m going?” Shirabu drops his hand and starts playing with the collar of Ushijima’s shirt. His brow furrows. 

“Why wouldn’t you? I think I’ll like going somewhere with you. It’s another good test for Goshiki,” he muses. Shirabu frowns. He’d been apprehensive with Goshiki running the company with essentially only Reon and a loose set of rules keeping him in check, but he had to admit that he’d done a good job of it last time. Nothing had burned to the ground even though Ushijima had been gone with Shirabu for almost a week.

“You want to try that again? What if we want to go to Europe for a few weeks?” Shirabu needles him. Ushijima shrugs. He doesn’t seem to feel anything near the same amount of trepidation as Shirabu does. 

“Then he’ll have the chance to come up with some more ideas of how he wants to run things,” Ushijima says. He even nods to himself like he’s seriously considering this. “He had some very good suggestions last time. I’ve been thinking of letting him try it again anyways.” Oh no. Shirabu feels like he’s opened up some kind of can of worms here. 

“Why are you so interested in how he runs things anyways? You’re the boss,” Shirabu huffs. He considers his next words, then decides to go along with it. “You seem pretty eager to just hand it over.” Ushijima doesn’t answer him immediately on that. He’s thinking, gold eyes trained on the floor while Shirabu still idly messes with his collar. 

“Well, I’ve been thinking I have to give it up at some point,” Ushijima admits. He doesn’t sound sad, or beaten down. Far from it. More like he’s finally decided on something. “I’m happy with what I’ve done with it, but I’ve been thinking I wanted to retire before I turn fifty,” he admits. Shirabu sighs, relaxes  into Ushijima’s lap. 

“I can’t blame you for that,” Shirabu says. He thinks about the stress he was just worrying over, and the new gray hairs he’s been noticing. It’s probably for the best that he gets out of such a stressful job in a few years; it’s starting to take a toll on him. “So you’re thinking you want to start grooming someone this far out?” he asks. Ushijima nods. 

“I think a vacation is a good way to do that. Thank you. I’ll let you pick where we go and we’ll start making plans,” Ushijima says. Shirabu drums his fingers on Ushijima’s collar, thinking. 

“Well, I wasn’t lying when I mentioned Europe earlier.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at quiddity25 and twitter @Quiddid. I'm mostly doing Voltron stuff right now but make no mistake, under the surface I'm completely obsessed with Shiratorizawa.


End file.
